In the Nov. 30 SN: A diabetes drug has cancer potential, supernovas raise questions about dark energy, steroids’ effects may last years and why some scientists think molecular shepherds in the brain may turn wolf.

November 30, 2013

Like an aging actor rediscovered after being typecast for years, the long-standing diabetes drug metformin is poised to reinvent itself. A wealth of studies suggests the drug has cancer-fighting properties, and clinical trials are now under way to prove it.

Metformin’s impact could be huge. “We believe that if this drug works, it will save between 100,000 and 150,000 lives a year worldwide because it is readily administered in countries that don’t have a lot of money for drugs,” says Vuk Stambolic, a molecular biologist at the University of Toronto. Also encouraging is the wide array of cancers metformin may t

The recent federal government shutdown, which furloughed more than 800,000 government workers and may have cost the nation as much as $24 billion, has sent ripples through the nation’s scientific research enterprise.